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Martin Luther King Jr. Day Lecture: The Demands of the Oppressed and the Presence of Justice

Sponsored by Africana Studies

Date: Monday, January 20, 2020

Time: 7:00 pm

Location: Valders Hall of Science, Room 206

In A Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr., suggested that "freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." Less than a year later, Ella Baker, an integral organizer in the SCLC, would note that "peace is not the absence of war or struggle, it is the presence of justice." These two figures of the Southern Black Freedom Struggle had radically different visions about how the work of civil rights would ultimately be accomplished--whether through prophetic leadership or group-centered leadership. They also, at the time of their respective speeches, had radically different timelines for when the work of civil rights would be accomplished. In this talk, Lydia Kelow-Bennett considers how the positionality of Black women in the Civil Rights Movement shifted their understanding of the goals and methods of "freedom," and examines how prophecy (vision) and group accountability (community) are both necessary components of agitation for justice.